Youth project aims to help nurture Thai social capital

national April 18, 2014 00:00

By The Nation

As capitalism-driven trends have flooded into Thai society, children are becoming preoccupied with self-interest, a prominent academic said yesterday.

Associate Professor Dr Sompong Jitradub, a lecturer at Chulalongkorn University’s Faculty of Education, said many children were now clearly interested in pursuing success and self-interest regardless of means.

“In doing so, they have ignored their communities and local wisdom,” Sompong said.

He said his faculty and the Thai Health Promotion Foundation had developed a project to synergise the power of children and local communities in the hope of boosting Thai social capital.

He said the project would encourage children to pay attention to their communities and local wisdom as well as to develop proper learning systems for children.

Sompong emphasised that children would need to learn not just from schools, but also from communities and parents.